WhatsApp Business crosses 5 million-users mark within a year of launch

WhatsApp on Thursday said over five million enterprises globally are using its 'Business' app to connect with their customers within a year of launch. "In January of last year, we launched the WhatsApp Business app, and now there are more than five million businesses using it to support customers, grow their businesses and serve their communities all over the world," WhatsApp said in a blogpost.

It cited the example of Bengaluru-based eyewear brand Glassic which has seen 30 per cent of its new sales being generated through WhatsApp Business. India is home to over 200 million WhatsApp users. It has about 1.5 billion users globally.

Using the business app, SMEs can help customers with useful information such as business description, e-mail, store addresses and website.

Recently, the Facebook-owned mobile messaging platform announced it was restricting how many times any given message can be forwarded in an effort to boost privacy and security. In July, WhatsApp had rolled out safeguards in India that included limiting the number of users to whom a message can be forwarded. It also ran newspaper ads to raise awareness about fake news.

That decision followed threats by the Indian government to take action after crazed mobs butchered more than 20 people accused of child kidnapping and other crimes in viral, widely-circulated WhatsApp messages. WhatsApp said its latest move to extend the restrictions to all users came after a six-month review of user feedback.

"The forward limit significantly reduced forwarded messages around the world," read a company statement on Monday about a test run of the forwarding limit. "Starting today, all users on the latest versions of WhatsApp can now forward to only five chats at once, which will help keep WhatsApp focused on private messaging with close contacts." Previously, users could forward any given message up to 20 times on the app.

"We'll continue to listen to user feedback about their experience, and over time, look for new ways of addressing viral content," the WhatsApp statement read. Founded in 2009 and purchased by Facebook in 2014, WhatsApp said that in early 2018 it had more than 1.5 billion users who exchanged 65 billion messages per day.